Tyco Rolling Stock.

[Santa Fe 4100]

My Uncle recently passed down his large collection of HO stuff to me from the 70s and 80s, almost all of the huge amount of rolling stock comes equipped with talgo trucks and hook couplers. I currently am debating whether I should experiment and try to find a way to get rid of the talgo trucks and replace them with knuckle couplers and metal wheel, or put the collection in storage until I figure out a better solution. What do y'all think I should do?

 

[Bruette]

Welcome to the forums! We are glad to have you with us.

The first thing is to decide how you want to use them. To make long trouble-free trains you will need quality trucks and couplers.

If you have the original boxes, you could sell them on eBay to collectors.

 

[KB02]

I have a bunch of old "toy" rolling stock on my layout. I have "improved" a great number of them with better wheels and body mounted Kadee couplers. Most work great, some... not so much. I have one caboose that I turned into a real project adding windows and actual grab rails, etc.

It's like Bruette said, first you've got to know how you want to use them. If you just want the rolling stock to have something your trains can pull, they can certainly do the job. If you're looking for a real "I turned this into that" project, they can be a lot of fun (and possibly frustrating).

A true rivet-counter modeler would be embarrassed to be in the same room as some of my rolling stock. But you know what, It's my rolling stock and they don't want to play with my trains, they don't have to, right? There are some seriously high quality products out there if that's the route you want to go. If you're just looking to add bulk to your inventory, the cheaper stuff works great for that. AND, they can be kind of fun to tune up so they run and even look better if you're into tinkering.

 

[logandsawman]

My Uncle recently passed down his large collection of HO stuff to me from the 70s and 80s, almost all of the huge amount of rolling stock comes equipped with talgo trucks and hook couplers. I currently am debating whether I should experiment and try to find a way to get rid of the talgo trucks and replace them with knuckle couplers and metal wheel, or put the collection in storage until I figure out a better solution. What do y'all think I should do?

It's a substantial amount of time and expense to make those upgrades.

I fixed up a lot of old rolling stock early in the hobby and most of them have been sold 12 years later, mostly because my taste and focus changed.

If you will not be keeping them for your own use, I would lean towards not putting much time into them. They may be at peak value on ebay as is.

 

[Iron Horseman]

My Uncle recently passed down his large collection of HO stuff to me from the 70s and 80s, almost all of the huge amount of rolling stock comes equipped with talgo trucks and hook couplers. I currently am debating whether I should experiment and try to find a way to get rid of the talgo trucks and replace them with knuckle couplers and metal wheel, or put the collection in storage until I figure out a better solution. What do y'all think I should do?

Why can't you run them with the Talgo truck mounted couplers? Make a conversion car or 2 or five and you got a large collection of stuff to run.

 

[CambriaArea51]

You can convert them. I did body mount where I could using Kadee #5. Where you can't like a hopper Kadee makes a Talgo adapter. This allows the truck to be used with a #5 and the spring box.

Tyco HO Scale Coupler Conversions

Couplers, Trucks, Wheels and Freight Cars - Made In USA

www.kadee.com

 

[dennis461]

Hey Santa Fe 4100,

You did not mention if you have a layout!
I have converted many cars to steel wheels and Kadee couplers, but, I also run the horn hook , truck mounted couplers. They do fine being pulled round and round.